Page 51 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
If I had thought Commander Thornne was quick to temper, he is like a kitten compared to the shades of purple the man on the throne turns as he stares at me, sputtering in rage.
“How dare you speak to your grandfather that way,” the woman snaps. “You are as vile-mannered and impetuous as you ever were. Worse, after all these years crisscrossing Aureon like street trash.”
And there it is. The confirmation I’d been looking for. I’d felt it in my bones, but I’d needed to hear it out loud.
“If I’m so impetuous, why in the name of the goddess would you summon me here and name me champion? In an attempt to overthrow the Queen, no less?”
My grandfather rises from his chair, pointing at me as he trembles with fury, spittle flying out of his mouth. “You know exactly why, you deceitful little wench!”
I try to keep the stunned expression from my face, but I can’t help it. I take a step backward, ready to defend myself if needed.
The woman sitting on the throne, who I can’t believe is my own flesh and blood, is opposite her husband. She is the embodiment of ice, her expression glacial, her body so rigid she’s like a sculpture. “After all these years, still the lies. You’d think you’d have learned your lesson by now. Isn’t it enough that your parents and your sister are all dead because of you?”
My legs buckle beneath me, and it’s again only the strongest steel in my will that keeps me upright. As my head spins, horror rising inside me in a black wave, my grandmother gestures to the man standing to the side of the throne. He jogs hastily from the tent and returns moments later with five guards, all wearing the red livery of my house.
“Take her to her tent,” my grandmother says coldly, as my grandfather sits back down in his chair, still shaking. “I want one of you positioned on each side at all times, day and night. If she escapes, I will not only have the heads of every single one of you, but I will have the heads of your families as well.”
I can feel myself going numb as they surround me and march me back out of the makeshift throne room. As we reach the entrance, my grandmother calls out again.
“And make sure she returns promptly an hour before sunset…when the sun falls, the tournament begins.”
I’m not sure how I stay on my feet as the guards walk me to a tent not far from the main one. There is a cluster of a half-dozen tents around the throne room, and the one they take me to is a small one at the back, closest to the sharp green peaks that scrape the sky. In the distance, I can hear the waves crashing monotonously against the cliffs below, a steep plunge about a hundred feet away. I have traveled almost the entire coastline along the southern edge of Aureon, and there is no place with cliffs like this. I had always guessed that Shadow’s Keep was somewhere in Kierevale or Illiare based on the mountains. Now I’m even more certain of it.
But the ancient site ofCorla ArnanVoris the least of my worries, other than this will probably be the last corner of Aureon I see before I die.
I finally know the truth—or at least, a big part of the truth—about my family, and it’s all I can do to keep from vomiting on the shoes of the guards leading me.
They say nothing, their expressions stony as they open the flap of my tent for me to go inside. I try not to stumble as I step through. Exhaustion and hunger and devastation are singing in my bones, but I wait until the tent flap has fallen back in place before I collapse onto the bed roll on the ground. I want to go to sleep and never wake up again. I want to let the darkness take me. Because clearly, darkness is in my blood.
My family is a band of ruthlessmonsters.
And clearly, I’m one, too.
The dread I’d been carrying all these years had been confirmed. I’d known that something truly terrible must have happened for me to lose my memories. Something beyond just the horror of losing my parents, my sister. And now I know what a part of me had always known… they’d died because of me. Because of the black magic that runs in my veins. The fire and the fury.
I’d killed the only people I’d ever loved.
Despite my exhaustion, it takes at least an hour to fall asleep. My thoughts are cycloning through my head. Memories of that first night, waking up to a wall of flames. Not knowing how they’d started, but knowing I had lost something so, so precious. All the years running, when I didn’t deserve to be free. I should have been locked up from the start. I’d thought all this time that my pursuers were the villains, but it wasn’t true.Iam the villain.
Fate has a way of taking its time, but now that time is up, and a price must be paid. I still don’t know for sure why my grandparents brought me here… do they think I can defeat everyone with my fire magic? There, at least, is some small justice. Because I may be the darkness, but they are mysource. And if they think that I’ll unseat the Queen for them, they’re mistaken. In my delirium, I almost giggle. Little do they know, I don’t remember how to control my magic. I can’t help them evenif I wanted to. They brought me all this way, and I am completely useless.
I hope the Queen throws them in fae prison for the rest of their days. I’ll pay my debt, and go right along with them. Of course, that’s only if I survive, and once the tournament begins in a few hours, I’ll have fae from every house out for my head.
Sleep finally claims me, and I rest fitfully until I’m awoken by the guards a few hours later. They pass me a bowl of stew, a chunk of bread, and a goblet of water. It must have finally occurred to someone that the champion of House Harkyn might faint of starvation, and wouldn’t that be a shame before things even got started. I eat hungrily, very conscious that this may be my last meal, comprised of stew so thick it gobs in my throat and day-old bread. I let out a mirthless laugh as I rinse it all down with the water, and the guard at the entrance to the tent turns and gives me an odd look.
Escape crosses my mind, but I’m not going to condemn these men and their families to death. I wouldn’t do that even if I did deserve to escape. Which, I don’t. I deserve whatever fate lies ahead of me. I deserve a death just as awful as the one that had claimed my parents and my sibling.
The guards bring me a change of clothes as well and tell me to prepare myself. Black pants, black boots, and a form-fitting set of brown leather armor for my chest. It’s thick enough to block a lot of blades, but still flexible enough to move around. A red cloak goes on last, emblazoned in thick, golden threading with the flaming hawk insignia of my house.
I would rather be anyone else in the whole world.
When I emerge from my tent, I see that the scenery has changed substantially since I went inside early this morning. And apparently slept like the dead, because I didn’t hear the hundreds of people, fae and human alike, who’d descended upon the valley. Dozens of tents line both sides of it, stretching rightto the base of the peaks on each side, leaving only a relatively narrow stretch of space between them. There’s also still a large area at the edge of the cliffs left clear.
My eyes sweep down the length of the valley, over the tents that stretch as far as I can see, and back to the cliffs, where the sun is beginning to set over the waves. The guards gesture for me to move, and then I am walking into the setting sun, step by step toward the cliffs, toward my awaiting destiny. All of the great houses of Aureon have traveled here to see the house who challenged the Queen. To see the champion who stands for that house.
All of the great houses of Aureon have traveled here to see me.
And, in just a few minutes, all of them will try toendme.
